Your First Dollar Online is the Sweetest.
There is a huge misconception that blights Internet marketing. It is that with just a computer and an Internet connection, anyone can succeed.
We are seduced into thinking that the only measure of success is the almost instant generation of bucket loads of money.
One part of the myth is true: anyone can start up an online business for very little money. But (and sorry if this bursts your bubble), that’s the extent of it.
Starting up is the easy part. Making it work is where 99% of people fall down.
I have been at both ends of the spectrum, so feel well qualified to talk about this. There were times when the only activity that my bank account saw as a result of my ‘Internet marketing’ was the regular payments to my hosting company.
Your business shouldn’t be about negative cash flow, should it?
Then things began to happen. An odd ten dollars here or there would come my way. My income slowly began to outgrow my outgoings. The first time I realized that had happened felt like an enormous lid had been lifted off my mind. Nothing would stop me now!
There is nothing special about me. I’m not one of those brightly shining stars who go from zero to millionaire in a couple of weeks. Yes, they do exist, but, frankly, they are the sort of people who would make it big whatever they went into. Visible as they are, they are RARE!
Even now (perhaps because I am getting older), it can be a struggle to understand the latest ideas and strategies.
But I have learned that if you let yourself be put off because something seems difficult, you lose out. The struggle really does pay off – and things that seemed insurmountably confusing soon become much easier.
Choose Wisely
We talk about ‘Internet marketing’ as if it is just one thing. But in reality, the term covers hundreds of different business models and ideas. Put 100 ‘Internet marketers’ in a room and ask them to write down how they make money online, and you’ll probably get 200 completely different methods!
The only thing that Internet marketers have in common is that their income comes to them via the Internet. As they say, the devil is in the details.
You could sell digital products or physical ones. Act as an affiliate for others or sell your own wares. Build websites, write blogs, market through Social Media, write newsletters, run webinars, or create and sell courses.
Dropship, buy products cheaply on the High Street and resell them for a profit on Amazon or eBay.
You could provide services for other people. Act as a virtual assistant. Provide help desk support.
And that list doesn’t even start to cover a fraction of the possibilities.
Before you begin, try to understand which aspect of making money online most appeals to you – and fits best with your mindset. There are many cheap ebooks and training courses available on Warrior Plus, JVZoo, and Clickbank that explain the basics of many different methods. Consider investing in a few (they will rarely cost more than $7-$10 each) to open your mind up to some of the possibilities.
Check out some of the excellent products I have reviewed here.
Internet Marketing is a Real Business
You see, Internet marketing is in many ways just like a real-life business. Apart from the cost of entry, you have to have the self-same personal attributes to make your business work:
- Persistence. Your overnight success might take a few months. But be prepared for it to take a lot longer. I know people who have taken years to become overnight successes. You must be ready to hang in there for the long term and trust that your efforts WILL pay off eventually.
- Continuous Education. The Internet is built on shifting sands. What works today might not work tomorrow. New ideas are being tried out all the time, and some of them will make a vast difference to your business. But unless you are, at least, trying to keep up with the latest strategies, you will surely fall by the wayside.
- Investment. It doesn’t cost much to buy a domain name and hosting, and you can start building a list with a free trial from many autoresponders. But that is just the start. If you really are treating your online activities as a real business, you will gladly invest in yourself. Not everything you buy will suit your ‘style’, and not everything will give you new knowledge that you earn money from right away. But if a new ebook or video gives you one new strategy, or sends your mind down a road that it hadn’t thought of before, you and your business will almost certainly benefit.
- Patience. Are you the kind of person who can work full out on a business for six months without let-up before seeing a single penny in return? You may not have to, but many a potential success story has given up before his business has had a chance to take off. If you don’t go in the front door prepared to give it a long-term shot, you might as well stay outside. It will be less stressful for you.
- Curiosity. The one overriding attribute that Internet marketers have is curiosity. We all want to know what will happen if we do this, and how our sales will be affected if we do that. It is called testing, and it is something that successful online people do as naturally as breathing. Curiosity drives us to ask questions. Only by continually asking questions can we find the right answers for ourselves.
- Sheer hard work. Don’t be fooled by the ads. Sure it is ‘possible’ to sit on a beach somewhere and tap away on your laptop, but whether you are on a beach or in Starbucks, or in your back bedroom or home office, you still need to put in the hours. Most Internet folks that I know spend far longer working on their online businesses than they’d ever put into a real-world business. There are many aspects that can be automated, but all that automation does is free your time up to devote to the parts that can’t be automated. For most of us, putting in 14 hours a day in front of our computers is fun. It is more like a hobby than a business and so we put in the hours willingly (and would do so even if it wasn’t making us money). Don’t worry though – as you become more proficient, and more successful, the hours you will need to work will diminish.
- Personality. I don’t mean that you have to be Mr or Miss Congeniality (although developing a persona that other people can relate to can be useful). What I mean by personality is that two people can get the exact same training from a coach, course, ebook, or mentor, both can seemingly apply the teaching in the same way and one will have great success while the other just can’t get things working. What it boils down to is their personality.
One particularly difficult truth about Internet marketing is that what works for me, might well not work for you. Success comes from trying new ideas and adopting those that ‘fit’ best with your own personality. For example, I have hugely successful friends who base their business on making videos, but try as hard as I might, making videos is difficult for me. I occasionally have a go, but it is not something I’m particularly comfortable with, so my success in that direction is very limited. On the other hand, I find writing easy. It fits my personality. So I have a lot more success in that direction than my video-making friends. Horses for courses.
If you want to be the next online success, you will need to understand all of these different attributes and more.
Is it easy? Not really. I often say that Internet marketing is a complex business, but not particularly complicated. Once you get your head around the fundamentals it does get easier – but that initial learning curve can often be the factor that stops people in their tracks.
Is it hard? Sometimes it is like hitting your head against the wall, but hard? No. You don’t hear about too many industrial accidents to someone writing an email!
Is it worthwhile? You bet. Even when you have it all working smoothly, you might still get the odd day when no money comes your way, but you will also see occasional days or weeks when thousands of dollars flood into your hands.
Believe me, you only need a few thousand dollar days to make all the frustration well worth the effort.
